With Meaningful Money, he is pushing the boundaries away from the traditional brochureware site of many IFA practices with the quite brilliant and engaging use of video. Meaningful Money is in effect a library of video blogs about financial issues. In the videos, Pete gives his personal insights into how to manage finances and investments, how to plan for retirement and how to financial insure against various scenarios.

His videos cover the core principals of Financial planning, building the foundations of the financial plan, investments and risk management and general topical financial discussions. The videos are delivered in an engaging format, with Peter talking to the camera as he moves around the county. The style builds rapport and relationship (you feel you know Peter well after the first video) before the client has even met Peter.

The boldness in this approach is that it could enable clients to become more financial astute and to selfserve, convincing themselves that they don’t need financial advice. However, the hard truth is that for some clients, this may be the right thing to do and they may not be in the position to justify Pete’s fees yet (when they can I wouldn’t mind betting Peter is on the list of people to contact). The reality though for many clients is that they will realise the complexity of their financial situation and Peter is then ideally placed to help them.

The reach of Meaningful Money is of course is far wider than the Cornish boarders and Pete’s services through the use of technology are now also stretching their reach throughout the UK. Through the use of Skype Video he can contact clients easily and recreate some of the personal chemistry associated with face to face advice but without the cost and time of travelling to remote clients.

Meaningful Money is one of the most unusual and differentiated IFA websites we have seen and we recommend a review of its capability.

With adviser interest in making Platforms part of their business models, it would seem that there is a good commercial case for Platforms. Indeed, it is likely that firms will need to consider not just whether they do adopt a Platform strategy but why they wouldn’t. The FSA Discussion Paper 10/2 has added to the debate with a range of questions about the due diligence, ongoing management, segmentation and customer solution matching along with remuneration methods and transparency as well as best execution.

We have looked at a number of Platforms and written articles as part of our weekly PA column. We have also looked at a recent initiative by Capita that has seen the launch of the Synaptic [Platform] Comparator. There has been some debate about whether it is possible (or right) for a firm to choose a single Platform. The FSA paper said that although they do not expect firms to review the platform market for each client, they do expect firms to consider which platform(s) are appropriate for their client bank – or segments of their client bank – in general terms and then ensure the recommendation is suitable for individual clients…

Different parties have chosen to interpret the FSA statement in different ways. Clearly, there is further debate and lobbying to take place on what is and isn’t acceptable. The Consultation Paper was expected midyear but this has now slipped to Q3 – perhaps giving an indication that there are still some challenges to be resolved in the mind of the regulator. We have written a Paper on the subject of Platforms – available here…. In addition, we have reviewed the Synaptic Comparator product that has now been launched and the article will be published in Professional Adviser in a few weeks. One of the striking issues that Comparator raised was the big, maybe surprising, perhaps even shocking differences in the potential customer outcomes. Platforms do not have simple, consistently clear and transparent charges! Trying to understand the implications of the charges and to compare how these affect customers’ choices is a good thing (some may not agree). If you use a measure such as ‘reduction in yield’ (RIY), or total expense ratios (TER) it is possible to see the ’drag’ of charges on an investment and this can vary significantly between first and second choice as well as the best and worst – hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of pounds!

By fragmenting the issue of choice, some may see comparison tools as undermining the modus operandi of Platforms as being a single economic asset management solution. However, the differences cannot be ignored and the industry is likely to close some of the gaps through competitive pressure and in time is also likely to consolidate Platform choice through M&A. We believe it is better that the industry sees and addresses the differences of choice and value early as we do not want to see another potential mis-selling scandal that hurts everyone.

Advisers need to look at Platforms to assess whether they are right for their business and for their clients. They should rule in or out of having a Platform strategy with a conscious justification that is reviewed regularly and tested against segments and individual needs. The issue of choice remains, not only at outset (even if a single Platform strategy can be justified when challenged) but also through ongoing reviews for how assessments are carried out and with what frequency – periodic or on each customer transaction.

As for Platform Operators (current and potential), the question of their own business case must be robustly assessed as there is a current trend to reduce costs that could reduce or remove margins. However, there is also a question about whether some Providers can decide not to become Operators if they are to remain viable businesses in the future.

We were joined by Danny Wynn from L&G, Ross Dunlop at Standard Life, Ray Chinn of LV=, Phillip Brown of Partnership, Verona Smith of Cofunds, Adrian Bishop from Scottish Widows, David Greenall from Canada Life and Michael Free and Tessa Lee from Sammedia.

There was little debate as to the capacity for consumers to use the internet to manage their finances. The uptake of online banking, the success of the comparison sites and the popularity of sites such as Martin Lewis’s themoneyexpert.com all showed the consumer’s propensity to go online to manage their finances.

The debate instead focused on the ability of Product Providers and Distributors to take advantage of this propensity.

Much focus was given on the need to ensure services were relevant and desirable by the end consumers. MoneyInfo from Sammedia was held up as a positive example of keeping things relevant for the end consumer. It collates information from different bank accounts and investment vehicles to give an up to date net worth for the client with the ability to analyse their position further. It is created in an ‘Apple’ look and feel to give it a sexy shine.

Another key focus was the creation of new products for the online world rather than simply putting existing products onto the web. Partnership have achieved this and as a result their annuity application form is stripped down from 20 pages to just 10 yes/no answers. They have challenged the accepted norms and smashed them apart.

The re-engineering of solutions is not always possible and advice is always likely to exist and the role of advisers in the sales process is key. But advisers need to embrace the technology too and support the online world bringing clients back to face to face world as required. Solutions like Moneyextra.com can help with that if embraced by the adviser world. They can be tools that IFAs offer to their clients that keep them engaged and keep the adviser at top of mind so when they need help with the more difficult aspects of financial planning they get help from them, when they don’t need assistance they may still transact via the IFA but online on the IFAs site.

Technology has a big role to play in the sale and service of L&P products – those advisers and product providers that realise this and seize the initiate will prosper post 2012. I fear for those (and there are many) that don’t.

The vendors do break down to a number of categories to ease choice though. There are a few mortgage specialists for example – lead by TrigoldCrystal and Mortgage Brain. Choosing a mortgage system isn’t however a two horse race as IntelliFlo, 1st -The Exchange and Plum all have revitalised mortgage propositions.

There are also those with clear focus on financial planning end of the market with specialist planning tools linked directly to backoffice systems. Prestwood and JCS would fit into this category. The mainstream providers 1st – The Exchange and IntelliFlo have increasingly strong offerings in this space as well though.

The tools are also divided into those that have come from a back-office background and those from a front office/POS background. 1st – The Exchange, Plum and IntelliFlo all have a very strong pedigree in the back-office and lead the functionality charts in this area along with True Potential. Focus and TrigoldCrystal have strong POS backgrounds, while Distribution Technology, JCS, CCL and Prestwood have built upon their original strengths of supplying sophisticated financial planning tools. 1st – The Exchange’s recent acquisition of N4 improves their front office capability, especially in the mortgage area. While most of the vendors have now extended out from their initial position to support both front and back-office, True Potential has always supported the breadth of front and back-office functionality and has added depth to the functionality over the last few years, making them overall winners in the functional review.

Few of the vendors have shown that they can scale to support large corporate projects but Focus, Distribution Technology, Crystal and N4 have established capability here. IntelliFlo has made some inroads to the Corporate space with projects at AXA and AEGON (Scottish Equitable). The acquisition of N4 by 1st – The Exchange could be a springboard for them to extend into this space.
For the smaller organisations, there are a number of aggressively priced systems available including Durell, CCL and Plum.

To help navigate this maze of supplier decisions AT8 have produced our Practice Management Upd8. Our report takes a comprehensive look at the suppliers, tracks their functionality, their integrations and their price points. It makes direct comparisons of their functionality at point of sale, the middle office and back office. We also look at the industry standing of each supplier and their key differentiators. The report is available at £2,500 plus VAT. Anyone interested in receiving a copy of the survey should contact us at marketing@at8-group.com or phone +44 (0)121 314 2504

What fun, that was! I was glad he’d pre-ordered it, as he would have been very disappointed, as they ran out after about 2 hours for those people just chancing to purchase one. But we were successful and walked away very happy!

I, on the other hand, had to wait for my service provider to get themselves into gear to send me mine by DHL – far more civilised, yet considerably slower.

So over last weekend, I’ve had a chance to crawl over the new device and thought I’d share my first impressions of Apple’s new baby. I’ll also try not to delve into areas that other far more qualified people have commented on.

So in a nutshell, here are my observations:

• Heavier – it’s larger and heavier than the iPhone 3GS – it has glass on both sides which gives the device a substantial feel
• Display – the new high resolution display is gorgeous – crisp and clear, with text looking like a printed page
• Video Calling – FaceTime is the new video conferencing system that Apple has developed for the iPhone 4 – it’s good and works like the Mac’s iChat – only WiFi at present, but still very good
• Cameras – the new higher resolution camera is excellent and combined with iMovie, can produce HD video footage and edit the results in real time – stunning. There’s a front facing camera too for FaceTime
• Speed – it’s significantly quicker than the old iPhones – in fact, it has as much grunt as the recently launched iPad – I can’t help thinking, a new version of the iPad will be out soon.
• iOS4 – the new name for the iPhone Operating System – this is available for earlier versions, too, and adds some good extra functions

There have been some press comments about signal attenuation when holding the device, but this is something I’ve not experienced – in fact, the performance of the radio is a lot better than the 3GS, with usable signal in my office, where previously I struggled on the O₂ network. Also, once the unit is fitted with one of the new ‘bumpers’, a case manufactured for the first time by Apple, then all the exposed aluminium antennae are covered and so the ‘problem’ disappears – if you don’t have a bumper, then maybe taking Steve Jobs advice might help – “just don’t hold it that way”!

So is it a game changer? Well, Apple has responded well to its competitors – as we’ve mentioned before, it still is going to be interesting to see whether its controlling ethos will prevail or the more open ‘morals’ of Android will become more ubiquitous, but Apple do keep on changing the shape of the football pitch.

With innovations like iAds, the ability to monetise software developments more easily adds to Apple’s armoury and will no doubt change the way in which apps are funded which might encourage more to join the development game.

The process of consolidation began last year with the merger of two of the biggest players in the Mortgage market – Trigold and Crystal and this week accelerated with the acquisition of N4 Solutions (N4) by 1st – The Exchange.

There have been a number of weaknesses in the offerings from 1st – The Exchange including:

• Lack of an online solution for the adviser market
• A weaker point of sale offering for Corporate clients (Adviser Evolution failed to gain traction in this space)
• Lack of experience in delivering to large Corporate/Enterprise clients.
• The lack of a clear joined-up sales message across the various disparate product offerings – which often overlapped/competed with each other

The acquisition of N4 Solutions should help to address the top three issues but depending on how well it integrates N4, the fourth issue may be either resolved or exacerbated. There is a major rebrand that has been in the pipeline for the last few months to bring these brands together and it is our understanding that this has been delayed to ensure the N4 products are included. This may help resolve the issue four. N4 was founded in 1999 by a management group with a successful track record and knowledge of the financial services industry. Rapid initial growth led to the company having 100 staff based in their ‘rural’ offices near Cirencester. The vast majority of staff has expertise in mortgages and financial services, as well as business consultancy and technology. The company considers itself to be stable, secure and successful. Based on the financial performance of the company, this view does not seem unreasonable. In July 2007 N4 was acquired by Experian for ‘an undisclosed sum’ (believed to be between £20 and £30 m)! There does not appear to be any specific figure available and even the Experian accounts that refer to acquisition expenditure of $1.7bn only highlights two specific figures and groups N4 under ‘other’. N4 produces and submits full audited accounts to Companies House (auditors are Baker Tilly). The company’s financial results for the year to March 2009 are a turnover of £13.8m up from £9.5m (a 45% increase) and a profit after tax of £3.5m from £1.2m (a rise of 178%). Its Net Assets were £10m and employee numbers were up from 66 to the 84 referred to above.

The justification for the acquisition appeared to be the bringing together of N4’s vertical market expertise with Experian’s market-leading ability in application processing and decision analytics, along with lead generation and property valuation models. N4 had a number of successes under the Experian umbrella including projects at Nationwide and Aviva but didn’t achieve (and arguably didn’t strive for) wider market positioning. N4 continued with an entrepreneurial drive which was beginning to look uncomfortable in the very corporate Experian family and a Management buyout of N4 was done in April 2010. Less than two months later, the management team sold the company to 1st – The Exchange.

When LDC took over 1st – The Exchange it was clear that they were positioning themselves to invest further in creating a substantial technology player in the financial services market. The N4 acquisition is the first step of what may or may not be others in order for them to achieve their vision. N4 brings with it substantial Enterprise experience of success which 1st – The Exchange has lacked. N4 has delivered some large projects including a substantial project at Nationwide. However, they – like others – have had difficulties and ‘expectation gaps’ to manage with big implementations.
N4 and 1st – The Exchange have worked together on several large projects in the past including Intrinsic and Norwich and Peterborough where N4’s POS system was integrated to Officeweb. These projects appear to have gone well and should bode well for the integration.

At Nationwide N4 delivered a mortgage origination system and this mortgage capability will have been of real interest to the 1st – The Exchange management. 1st – The Exchange has been promoting consumer facing solutions to the lenders and the ability to include the origination piece will greatly enhance their offering in this space. Adviser Evolution – the POS system – from 1st – The Exchange has struggled to gain traction in the market and N4 has a strong POS offering, supporting mortgages as well as life products, (although it appears less productised than most). The N4 solution gives an online alternative to Evolution that is badly needed although 1st – The Exchange a keen to point out that they remain committed to Adviser Evolution despite the acquisition.

For several years 1st – The Exchange has had too many products, gained through acquisition that have not been rationalised into a single branded, joined up solution. It should be possible to merge the solutions into a single family as the solutions already link up at client sites and largely complement rather than overlap. However, given the track record of addressing this issue it remains a concern that this will not be done in a timely manner. If properly adopted, the N4 acquisition has the potential to be the strategic solution and justification to ‘retire’ the other product entities gracefully, but it could also further exasperate the confusion of product strategy and choice – time will tell.

Taken as a whole the acquisition makes a lot of sense. It gives 1st – The Exchange parts of the application stack of a distributor that it didn’t address well. If the right focus is given to making the integration work it should enhance both parties position in the market. We await further signs of progress with great interest.

On one slide (of too many) that was part of the presentation about the market challenges – including the global and local economy and regulation (RDR etc) – I listed a number of bullet points to illustrate the economic environment:

My point was that it is too often too easy to focus on the negatives and see the ‘glass as half-empty’ (some see it as completely empty!). I gave a personal example of how we need to put problems and challenges in context – without ignoring them for what they are. I was relating a story about the challenges of having a daughter about to do ‘A’ levels and the pressure that I was placing on her to study in order to get the grades required by her University offer (I am apparently more of a ‘stress transferor’ than a stress owner). All of this paled into insignificance (well not quite…), when, after a week of racing heart rate (tachycardic) and two occasions when she collapsed, she was eventually rushed into hospital with what turned out to be ‘massive bilateral pulmonary emboli’ (two big blood clots on both lungs) that were causing significant strain on the heart and required urgent thrombolysis. My daughter has become a bit of a phenomenon due to the rarity of the problem in someone so young without obvious linking causes, but I am sure she would prefer not to have this notoriety.

The good news is that the advice and treatment by the experts seems to have worked and although still recovering with ongoing medication, the current status is less critical and worrying than three weeks ago. The point is that however difficult the situation, there is usually a way of dealing with it and in the context of other situations it may not be as bad as we first feel.

Going back to the presentation and the bullets on the various slides, we should remember that our industry often has the knowledge, skill and experience (and products) that can help consumers to manage or mitigate some of the consequences of the problems that the economy presents. We should be proud of what we do and positive about the value we create. As I said (not original) last week, ‘the only constant is change’! Our industry needs not only to cope with change, it needs to be resourceful and adaptable in order to ‘create positive change’.

There’s been a lot of noise this week around the manufacturers, with HTC’s new baby, the EVO 4G, selling out in the US and, of course, the Apple iPhone 4 being announced at Apple’s WWDC conference in San Francisco last Monday.

The AT8 crew are all iPhone 3G (or GS) users, and so I followed the conference live from the blogs and would describe the announcement as evolutionary not revolutionary, despite Steve Jobs’s spin. There are some real benefits to the new device:

• Bigger battery = longer standby/talktime – from a personal perspective, I really need this
• Smaller form factor – should fit in my shirt pocket even easier now
• Higher resolution screen – I’m looking forward to seeing this ‘in the flesh’
• Video Conferencing – using a new open standard called FaceTime and utilising a new front facing camera, but only using Wi-Fi at the moment
• Higher resolution camera – up to 5M pixels, with LED flash

I must say, it looks good, too – I like the metal finish and also the glass front and back, which should add to its durability.

The big question is, though, can it shake off the competition of an ever-growing adoption of Google’s mobile operating system Android, with it’s latest incarnation, codenamed FroYo, hitting the newer devices now – I’m not sure and Steve Jobs in his recent interview at the D8 conference, appears to shrug off the competition – certainly, Apple are manoeuvring away from Google, with the inclusion of Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo search in the new iPhone operating system renamed iOS 4 – incidentally, iOS 4 can also be loaded onto some more modern iPhones and iPods, with it being available for iPad’s later in the year.

Anyhow, I’ve already approached my service provider, who gleefully tells me that I’m going to have to wait a few more days to get an idea of the UK pricing – once I have one, I’ll let you know my first impressions.

Much effort and investment has been put into the Wealth and mass affluent propositions of most distributors as they come to terms with the need to charge (and justify) fees for advice. Much concern remains about whether consumers will pay fees for advice after the 2012 deadline and different interest groups are expressing conflicting views depending on their own position and motives. It’s worth remembering that consumers currently do pay for advice and whilst it is often still ‘disguised’ as commission, the reality is that after 2012, we will be working in a world where all investment advice (other than Basic) will require a fee to be identified and paid. When people ask if they would be willing to do so in the current environment, it has to be set against the context of the products current pricing and adviser’s remuneration method.

Post 2012, the price of the product will be the factory gate price and so will be different to what they would usually be charged today. The advisers charge will be specifically expressed as a monetary amount and if properly justified as being of value to the consumer, should be an acceptable price for what they get. Perhaps some advisers are struggling to justify the ‘value’ that their services give to customers and if so, they have either an education or articulation challenge (perhaps for themselves as well as the customer)!

I have heard Product Providers talk about how little they need to do to cope with the new environment, some see that they simply set the commission of the product to zero and that will be sufficient. I beg to differ, the new environment is going to be competitive and it will expose Product Providers inefficiencies in a way that they have not seen so far. They will need to innovate, make sure they add real value and deliver excellent service if they are to convince advisers and customers that they are the right choice.

Many advisers have started to review, re-engineer and improve their business propositions in readiness for the new requirements. However, just as Providers need to ensure that they are efficient and deliver excellent service, advisers will be competing to offer their services at attractive fees, which in theory can be compared by consumers as with many other commodities and services.

We have always said that technology has an important part to play, and whilst it is a cost to a business, chosen and implemented properly, it will deliver efficiencies and service improvements that help secure business and improve the bottom line.

Those who are fearful today are probably right to feel that way…they need to develop a clear strategy for not just how to cope, but how to prosper.

1st – The Exchange used the conference to trail a number of interesting developments. The one that gained the most interest was their ‘Client Portal’ and it is an important development for a company that has largely delivered offline technology solutions in the past. The Client Portal quite simply gives the end client a view of the data the IFA holds. It also enables the client to make changes to that data albeit that these changes, for data integrity reasons, aren’t accepted into Adviser Office until approved by the adviser. Client Portal also shows a view of the Portfolio, enabling automated valuations to be requested. Finally, it allows for a secure document store and a protected method of communication between adviser and client.

1st – The Exchange has built the system with mobile devices in mind and demonstrated this with both the iPhone and the Blackberry. Client Portal is a significant development and a positive step forward with a more modern web look and feel when compared to Adviser Office. There is a breed of more modern tools that are being used to engage the end consumer in a number of ways and another good example of such a tool from Sammedia which has a very engaging ‘Apple’ look and feel to it, called MoneyInfo was also on show at the conference.

In addition to the Client Portal, 1st – The Exchange was also showing of its new financial planning tools to the market. Again, what they have built, is an impressive step forward over some of the older, but still widely used Product solutions. Financial planning tools tightly integrated to the back-office makes a lot of sense and my only disappointment with the tools that were on show is that they are probably still six months from general release.

1st –The Exchange is the largest ‘quote and apply’ portal and is still the largest back-office system in the market. As market leader, they are often picked on as the firm people love to hate. However, the value that they provide to the industry has been and still is, immense. The company has a broad set of product functionality and the financial backing to push its strategy forward. It spends more on R&D than some of the smaller companies’ annual turnover. As with all suppliers, clients and consultants like ourselves often want more to be delivered from them sooner and for everything to work as a joined up story. However, we mustn’t lose sight that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ and maintaining existing functionality, renewing it in new solutions and adding innovative ideas for the future is a significant challenge, but is one that the Company would appear to be working towards delivering.